On a Bus
by Loisarah
Summary: Angsty future fic, Jessie thinks about Jonny while on a trip. Serious issues ahead, glossy depiction of illness and suicide.


Title: On a Bus

Author: Loisarah

Email: Sure.

Summary: Jessie's thoughts on a bus ride

Category: Angst, J&JHR, Family, Music

Rating: PG

Author's Notes: Another old fic reposted… dedicated to Dana, wherever you are. I still remember talking about this song with you! Inspired by the song "On a Bus to St. Cloud" by Gretchen Peters. Trisha Yearwood has a wonderful version.

Disclaimer: I don't own the lyrics to this song or the characters, no money is changing hands, written for fun and not profit.

Warnings: Issues of suicide

The bus terminal was stereotypically dark, dank, and dirty. The last place you'd expect to see her, the stereotypical rich girl. Only her life wasn't any type of typical. And she didn't want to live it anymore. She wanted anything but this.

Slowly she ran her fingers through her short, red hair, still adjusting to the length. Jessie had cut her hair a few weeks ago, but still expected to see her long straight locks in the mirror every morning. Brushing her bangs out of her face, she looked up and around at the other passengers on the sparsely occupied bus. An old lady sat behind the driver, clutching a large flowered bag that looked as if it'd seen better days closely to her chest. Across from the old lady sat a young boy, around seven years old, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Jessie tried to not look at him. He looked so much like him, when they'd first met.

Five rows behind Jessie sat a middle aged black man, the only passenger who seemed at ease and calm about the ensuing trip. Jessie hoped some of his serenity and optimism would rub off on her. If only she could forget, loose herself in the present, instead of constantly drifting dangerously into the past.

The driver shut the doors and began a slow departure from the bus terminal. Jessie repressed a sigh, hoping she'd be able to lose herself in her journey, and hoping that her father and Hadji wouldn't catch up with her. If only she could avoid them for a while, avoid anything Quest Team, avoid Dr. Quest and his eyes… and all the pain in them. Jessie felt that her heart would break even more every time she looked at Dr. Quest and caught his bleak stare. Leaning back into her seat, Jessie closed her eyes and tried to stop the images from coming.

Regardless of how hard she tried to steer her thoughts in a different direction, they always wandered back to him. She didn't know how much longer she could try this desperate game of escaping her memories. It was a dangerous game, and she was losing fast. She couldn't let herself remember, she couldn't handle her emotions. She had to avoid them. She opened her eyes and stared straight into the curious gaze of the little boy. His blue eyes pierced her soul.

Going nowhere, that's what she was doing. Wandering in circles, trying to avoid him, but still seeing him everywhere. Why? Why did she see him everywhere? Why couldn't his memory leave her alone?

Jessie leaned back into her seat again, letting her exhausting emotions and the swaying of the bus move her to blissful sleep. Her dreams were full of him, of the happy days at the Quest Compound, the beach, the lighthouse, the woods, playing with Jonny and Hadji, inseparable, and the refereeing of the adults. Her dreams shifted into more recent memories, more intimate memories, of her and Jonny sneaking out of the house and onto the beach, out of parental view. The night she asked Jonny to marry her, one of her happiest memories flashed through her mind, yet didn't stop there. She remembered the day he first seemed to have paled, and his eyes lost their luster, their spark. She had visions of the doctors and the tests and the hospitals, and finally views of the farewell note. Of her running to Jonny's room to find him cold, lifeless, and gone.

The bus slowly ended its journey as it pulled into the next terminal, and the riders breathed a collective sigh of relief, even the optimist behind Jessie. The little boy's eyes eagerly swept the snowy landscape outside the bus. Jessie watched and couldn't help but to compare Jonny's actions before he became ill to the young boy. She felt as if she were watching history, yet she already knew the outcome. Why still echoed through her mind, anger was gone, but the confusion and the hurt remained. "Why?" her mind still screamed, "Why?"

"Because Jonny didn't like who he was anymore, Ponchita," she heard her father's voice say, "Jonny didn't feel like himself anymore, he couldn't live with that."

"But, why did he leave me?"

He didn't reply, he just pulled his daughter into his arms and held tight.

Jessie stepped out of the bus and into the refreshing, crisp winter's air. The white snow and icy branches looked new, and made her glad she was in that spot at that moment. Her memories were temporarily washed away by the snowy flakes and icy trees. She left the terminal feeling like she hadn't in months.

As Jessie walked into the hotel room memories rushed back and hit her hard, almost in a physical blow. The room looked so much like a hospital room to her. She'd had enough of hospital rooms and memories of Jonny looking so frail.

Forcing herself to enter the room, she dropped her bag and shut the door before flinging herself onto the bed and burying her face in the pillow, hiding the horrible room she was in. The tears came, she tried to stop them, but they still came.

"Jonny…"

Jessie's sobs drowned out the sound of the hotel room door being opened, and she didn't realize anyone was there until two strong arms pulled her up into an embrace.

"Daddy, he's gone, he's gone, he's gone…"

"I know, sweetheart, I know." Race held his daughter tight and let himself give way to his grief as well. "I know, I know," he continued to say, in an effort to comfort her. Finally he just let himself cry with her, the two of them coming to grips with their loss.

The End

© 1997-2004 Loisarah


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